Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Gauguin, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Degas are among the famous artists and writers who enjoyed drinking Absinthe.
Absinthe is a strong alcoholic beveragedistilled at high proof but generally served diluted with iced water or in cocktails. Absinthe is flavored with herbs and essential oils along with wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium), aniseed and fennel and made from a wine alcohol base. Other herbal ingredients used in the manufacture may include hyssop, lemon balm, star anise, angelica, juniper, nutmeg, dittany, calamus root and mint.
Information about Absinthe History
Absinthe has a very long and interesting history. There had been medicinal use of wormwood since ancient times. In the Swiss town of Couvet in the Val-de-Travers a French doctor, Dr Pierre Ordinaire made Absinthe. Ordinaire used it on his patients as a medicine which gave amazing results.
In Couvet Henri-Louis Pernod was using the Absinthe recipe to distill Absinthe and under the name of Pernod Fils in the French town of Pontarlier. By the middle of the 19th century, Absinthe was produced upto 30,000 liters per day by the Pernod company!
Absinthe was a popular drink in most of the countries. In France Absinthe overtook wine as the favorite drink. Contemporary there were concerns about health and the effects of Absinthe. The liquor was linked to the Bohemian culture of Montmartre with its loose morals and artists and writers. The psychedelic effects, convulsions, insanity, brain damage and death was believed to be the causes from thujone.
Absinthe was thought to be the cause for Van Gogh's insanity and his suicide, for the murder of a family and for the rising rate of alcohol abuse in France. The USA and France restricted Absinthe in the year 1912 and 1915 respectively. Absinthe was unauthorized in other countries also.
Absinthe Revival
During the ban, people either drank Absinthe substitutes, such as Pernod Pastis, or bought bootleg Absinthe. Studies and research showed that the claims made about Absinthe were untrue.
Studies showed that the thujone content in Absinthe was so small that it cannot cause harmful side effects and drinking Absinthe was no more dangerous than other strong alcoholic beverages.
The EU legalized Absinthe with up to 10mg/kg of thujone in the late 20th century and in 2007 the USA legalized certain brands of Absinthe which contained up to 10 ppm of thujone .
France, home of Pernod's original Absinthestill has a ban on products labeled “Absinthe” and France also strictly regulates drinks containing fenchone, a chemical in fennel which is a key ingredient in Absinthe. In France, Absinthes are famous as “spirit a base de plantes d'absinthe” and should contain up to 5mg per liter of fenchone.
In these times of revival, it is possible to order Absinthe online, buy it in a liquor shop or buy real wormwood Absinthe essences to make your very own Green Fairy – see AbsintheKit.Visit AbsintheKit.com for more information about Absinthe essences. They also sell replica Absinthe glasses and spoonslike a Pontarlier glass and Eiffel Tower spoon.
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